The professional provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos has resigned as an editor at Breitbart News amid a firestorm over unearthed comments in which he seemed to endorse sex between "younger boys and older men."

The news was first reported by the New York Times on Tuesday afternoon, minutes before Yiannopoulos was scheduled to give a press conference in Manhattan.

"It would be wrong to allow my poor choice of words to detract from my colleagues' important reporting, so today I am resigning from Breitbart, effectively immediately. This decision is mine alone," Yiannopoulos said in a statement.